TMNT: Just for You
by tmntpunx
Summary: 2k14 movie verse. April comes to the rescue when Donatello gets a little roughed up, spurring feelings Donatello does not have it in him to face. Rated T. RaphaelxApril/DonatelloxApril.
1. Just For You

Donatello's reflection blinked back at him through one eye. Without his glasses, he could barely make out his own face, but from what he could see, it didn't look good. The turtle reached gingerly to touch his other eye, swollen shut and already bruising like a plum, but just as one of his three fingers was about to touch his throbbing face, a voice rang out from across the apartment.

"Don't touch it!"

He sighed, and his hand fell to his side. With his one good eye, he took stock of his injuries in the bathroom mirror. One black eye. A scrape across the other cheek. He took a deep breath and shuddered, his hand snapping up to clutch his side. Bruised ribs. Not broken, but definitely bruised. The turtle in purple took another shuddering breath. He was lucky there hadn't been more of them.

His host came up behind him. "Don."

Donatello turned slowly to face her, his injuries belaboring his movements.

"Don, let me see."

Though he had dumped his gear at the door, he had not bothered to remove his bandana. It obscured his injury, but he had no intention of untying it. Being alone with April made him feel vulnerable enough as it was. April let out an exasperated sigh. Even on her tip toes, she was still more than a foot shorter than Donatello. Her neck craned backwards trying to get a look at his face, which seemed to be turning an off shade of green. Donatello sniffled slightly. She was holding a ziplock bag full of icecubes.

"Just for you," she said with a slight smile. The plastic crinkled in her hand.

"Do you have anything to wrap that in - to avoid potential cold injury to the site -" he mumbled nervously.

"Don, just let me see it!" she snapped.

Taking his chin between two fingers, she coaxed the turtle towards her. Donatello grimaced, but not just on account of the pain. He had been too distracted, going through those e-waste scrap bins. He hadn't noticed. He didn't see them coming.

April's full pink lips drew into a taut frown as she reached up with the bag of ice. When the turtle flinched, she sighed. She did not try to touch his face again. Instead, she took one of his hands in hers, slowly opening up each of his three fingers before placing the sloshing bag of ice in his palm.

"Ice your eye," she ordered.

Donatello nodded, slowly, feeling himself sway slightly. "Thank you…for coming to get me," he murmured. "I didn't want to worry Sensei." _Or get an earful from Leo. Or a slap upside the head from Raph. Or tell Mikey. Then everyone would know._

April smiled. "It's no problem, Don. Really."

As Donatello tried to return the smile, he felt himself lurch forward. He watched, unable to stop himself, as the smile vanished from April's face. His heart sunk as her eyes widened.

"Don!" she cried.

"I'm fine," the turtle heaved, leaning on her to steady himself. "Really. I'm fine," he repeated, his fingers curling around the bag of ice as he sagged over her shoulder.

"You are most definitely not fine," April muttered. "Come on."

Slowly, the two made their way across the apartment in tandem. April leaned, low, and Donatello slumped on to the couch, still clutching the bag of ice. The turtle sunk into the couch, his shell settling into the old piece of furniture that was somehow too hard and too soft at the same time. His head reeled, and a wave of nausea washed over him, turning the inside of his mouth sour. With a deep breath, he closed his one good eye.

"Don. You need anything?" her hand was on his shoulder.

The turtle struggled to open his eye again. When he did, she was standing before him, with her hand on her hip, her long auburn hair spilling over her shoulders. Beautiful as ever.

"Do you need coffee?" she asked. "Would that help you stay awake?"

"Research actually shows that it is in fact safe to let patients with concussions sleep," he managed a small smile. "But a coffee would be great."

"Whatever you say, Donnie," April shook her head as she strode across the small apartment to the kitchen. "Ice that eye!"

Too exhausted to argue, Donatello laboriously drew the bag upwards. The heat of his hand had begun to melt the ice, and the bag sloshed with cool water, making it all the more challenging to do as he had been instructed. Grimacing, he laid the bag over his swollen eye. The merciful cold settled over his swollen face, numbing the eye he could no longer open. With a sigh of relief, his neck lolled back over the back of the couch and he closed his eye again.

The kettle rattled as it became hot on the stovetop; Donatello's face slowly became cold and numb. The aroma of coffee wafted across the living room, and he inhaled deeply, drinking the rich smell in. There was another smell here, too…something familiar. Before he could place it, his bruised rib flared, hot and angry and agonizing, and the turtle gritted his teeth. Maybe it was broken after all.

The kettle screamed. The bag of ice slumped over his eye; his arm was starting to ache from holding it there. The turtle sighed. Everything was going to be all right. April was making coffee.

"What do you take in your coffee?" she called.

"Coffee. Black," Donatello grunted. "Please."

April appeared with a mug in one hand and the French press in the other. Sliding the press across the coffee table, she glanced up at him. Donatello forced his good eye open and eagerly groped for the coffee.

"You got it?" she asked.

He could hear the hesitation in her voice, but he nodded emphatically in response, and they exchanged the bag of ice for the cup of coffee. The turtle held it for a moment, savoring the way it smelled.

April sat beside him. "You can stay as long as you want," she offered. "But you should probably call Splinter. You know how he gets."

Donatello cast her a quizzical glance with his one good eye. "What about your roommate?"

April shook her head. "No roommate. I can't really afford the place on my own, but I've been writing some short news pieces for this online biotech journal, so that helps."

"Biotech?" the turtle blinked in surprise.

"Yeah," April began, almost wistfully. "I was a Biotech minor in college, before the labs got to be too much for my schedule." She smiled sadly. "I thought it would help people take me more seriously."

Donatello's fingers curled around the coffee mug. There was so much to learn about April. He had never thought that a person could hold his attention the way that she did. She was beautiful, of course; hours of marathoning whatever the TV in the lair could pick up alongside Michelangelo had taught him about the physical attributes of beauty. It had also taught him that beautiful girls fell for beautiful boys. But April was so much more than beautiful. She was kind, and thoughtful, and best of all, she was smart. And for some reason, she liked him enough to throw herself into a city car share and come to his rescue in the middle of the night.

It was difficult for Donatello to see without his glasses, so he squinted, trying to get a glimpse of her as she made her way back to the kitchen, her long hair swaying over her shoulders, her hips swinging with each step. He sighed.

"How's the coffee?" she asked over the scraping sound of her excavating more ice from the recesses of the freezer.

Donatello took a sip and wrinkled his nose. The coffee was stale; all aroma and no body. He swallowed the hot, tasteless brew as quickly as his mouth could manage.

"It's great, thanks," he coughed. Donatello had never been particularly adept at lying. Before he met her lying was not something he had ever needed to be good at. He had gotten along just fine, eschewing conflict with ease. But April O'Neil would not be ignored.

"Let me see your eye," she insisted.

Grateful for the excuse to abandon the coffee, Donatello complied. He watched with blurred vision as April leaned forward, her hair falling around her shoulders. The turtle took a shuddering breath, drinking in her scent. That other smell lingered between them, but he ignored it. She was so close he was afraid she might hear his heart pounding beneath his plastron.

"Let's get this off," she murmured, and Donatello blinked.

"Huh?"

"Your goggles," April explained, rolling up her sleeves.

As she reached to push back his goggles and headset, the turtle's only good eye widened. That smell. It was Raphael. His smell was all over the couch. All over the apartment. All over her. Instinctively, he jerked back, recoiling from her touch.

"Don!" she cried. "Are you ok?"

Donatello swallowed loudly. "Y-yeah," he stammered. "It's just, I'm a little weird…about being touched. After what happened with the Foot."

Another lie.

April's face creased in concern, but she nodded in understanding. "Of course. I'm sorry, Don," she said, tenderly.

The turtle winced, his face and neck tense with pain after jerking away from her. He had known April and his brother were involved, but he had had no idea to what extent. If he had had any doubts, Raphael's musk all over her apartment had obliterated them entirely. Slow and deliberate, he peeled his goggles and headset away. April gathered them up gingerly, and set them on the table, next to his forgotten cup of coffee.

April deftly replaced his gear with ice, her fingers barely brushing his as she set the bag in his hand. "Ice that eye," she ordered. Then, more gently, she added, "Give me a minute to change - then maybe we can put something on? I think they just added more Star Trek to hulu."

Donatello nodded meekly. Obediently, he pressed the ice over his black eye, which had begun to throb again in the absence of the numbing cold. He watched her with his only good eye as she walked away, wishing for nothing more than to shrink into the couch. If he had just happened to blink out of existence at that very moment, he wondered if anyone would even notice.

"So…" he began in an attempt to bury his self-pity in small talk. "What are you writing for the journal?"

She swung her bedroom door open behind her. "Oh, you know, mostly news pieces. I did a short piece on the updated laws regarding sharing genome data last week."

Donatello squinted, trying to see what she was doing.

Reflecting in one of the decorative mirrors dotted throughout the living room was a glimpse of her bare back, defined by the sweeping line of her spine, like a perfect stroke in an inkwash painting. Her hair swung over her shoulders as she reached over her head to pull on her top. Donatello gulped. He knew she had opened the door so that they might talk, but why hadn't she shut it? Had she just assumed that he couldn't see? Or, that even if he could, there was nothing he would do?

"An interesting piece went up on the genomics of Monarch butterfly migration and mating earlier today…I could get you a free subscription code, if you'd like to read it."

Donatello tried to smile. "I'd like that."

A sentence from one of the many biology books he had devoured came to mind, and something dropped in the pit of his stomach. _Male alphas may gain preferential access to sex or mates_. Suddenly, it all made sense. Her attraction to Raphael. Their…whatever it was they were doing. His physical prowess. His sheer size. Raphael was an alpha male. This explained why April responded to him the way she did - it was more than a superficial attraction. She was responding to him on some subconscious, biological (genomic might be stretching it) level. Raphael saved April. Not the other way around. Donatello's lips crumpled into a frown.

He had never felt so painfully omega male.

The door across from the living room swung all the way open, and April emerged in her faded yellow sweatshirt and a pair of leggings with the hole in the knee. She flopped down on the couch, and Donatello stiffened at how close she was. In what seemed like one swift motion, she tucked her legs up under her and snatched up the remote. The television flared to life, and Donatello bit his lip.

"How's your eye?" she asked, monotonously clicking the remote controller through a slur of channels.

"It's ok," he replied, noting that she that she did not reach to touch him this time. His stomach lurched. He wished he had known there would be this many variables. There had been so many chances for this to go wrong, and so few for it to go right. He had played right into the hands of probability and blown it, like an idiot. Whatever they could have been was gone.

Slowly, April turned away from the television to face him. Stiffly, Donatello let his arm slide down to his side, he still held the sandwich bag full of melting icecubes tightly in his fist.

"Don."

Donatello's chest tightened. "Yes, April?"

"I need to know," she peered up at him from beneath her long dark lashes.

Donatello could feel her her eyes lingering on his bruised face. He could not help but blush. He tried not to swallow. He tried not to blink. Just when he realized he was holding his breath, she spoke again.

"Who's your favorite Star Fleet Captain?"

The turtle exhaled a sigh of relief, his entire body sagging. Then he smiled. Though it pained his aching face, he raised his brow ridge. "That's a pretty serious question, Miss O'Neil."

"Inquiring minds want to know," she gave him a wink.

If Donatello had had the strength to stand, he would have gone weak at the knees.


	2. Just What I Needed

**A/N: **_I think I may have just written myself into a corner with this one, since I don't see Raphael as a bully, or April as one to toy with anyone's emotions. They're still in a nebulous place; maybe I can get away with it for a little longer. But Apritello just kind of ran away with me. Oops. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! Your enthusiasm was one of the things that spurred me on as I agonized over this one._

Donatello hunched over April's laptop and wrinkled his nose. He was running a scan, and the red progress bar at the bottom of the screen that had been gradually becoming more full had come abruptly to a halt. The turtle sighed. For someone as intelligent as she was, she sure did have a lot of malware. But her machine was old, and so was her antivirus. It wasn't much of a surprise that her laptop was riddled with adware. And spyware. He had found a particularly nasty bug that had glommed onto her operating system, and spent much of the evening sussing it out.

Drawing his cold cup of coffee closer to him, he gave the laptop a scrutinizing glance. It would have been easier to build her a new computer. He would have been happy to. It would have been no problem, really. But she had said the one she had was fine. She had insisted. So Donatello sat hunched over her laptop in the recesses of his workshop, sighing. It was the least he could do.

April had let him sleep on her couch when his black eye was so bad he couldn't even open it. When the swelling had subsided, he had returned to the lair. It had taken Leonardo all but five minutes to discern his injuries from the discoloration around his eye, but it hardly mattered. Donatello could still remember the way she smelled, if he closed his eyes. Raphael must have known. Why else would his brow ridge have creased like that?

It was bad enough that he had stayed the night at April's place, but thinking about her - that was crossing the line. Raphael had been spending a lot of time with her lately. But even though he wanted everyone to think he was bad, he was usually home by curfew. Donatello might have considered the scowling across the breakfast table to have been worth mentioning, if it weren't already his brother's default expression.

Raphael had to have known.

But that night, he was out on patrol with Leonardo, which gave Donatello a sense of reprieve. There was a certain comfort in knowing Raphael wouldn't be skulking around the lair, and that Donatello wouldn't turn his computer chair to see his biggest brother glowering at him from the doorway. And best of all, if he was out on patrol, he wasn't at April's. The visceral memory of Raphael's scent all over her couch, all over her apartment, all over her, hit him like a punch in the gut. Hard and fast and unforgiving. The turtle shook his head, and forced his eyes back to her laptop. He had work to do.

Donatello's pushed his glasses up his nose, squinting behind the lenses. The progress bar was still frozen. The turtle groaned a little too loudly.

"Everything ok over there?"

"Yeah," Donatello replied absentmindedly, tossing the tails of his purple bandana back over his shoulder. "It's fine. Really. Just slow going."

Donatello saw her from the corner of his eye. April O'Neil was standing in the doorway in that yellow leather jacket, her messenger bag slung across her shoulders. Suddenly his mouth was very dry.

"A-April!" he stammered. "What are you doing here?"

A smile spread across her face. "Do I need a reason to visit my favorite ninja mutant turtles?"

The turtle gulped. "I s-suppose not."

Her words hung in his mind. She said "My favorite ninja mutant turtles." Not turtle. Biting his lip, he attempted to stifle a sigh. It had been years since he had stuttered. His brothers had teased him for it relentlessly when they were children. Even Leonardo. Leo wouldn't care to admit it, but there was a time when he did not know honor. But Donatello had always known shame.

April rummaged through her bag, and before he knew it, she was holding a bottle of whiskey in one hand, and a bottle of baileys in the other. "Do you want a drink?" April asked. Donatello opened his mouth, but before he could reply, April answered for him. "Let's have a drink."

The turtle's eyes strayed across his desk, which was littered with cups crusted with dry coffee. He blinked.

"Glasses," he managed. "Kitchen."

April nodded and she was on her way, her heeled boots clicking as she went.

"B-be careful in there! Michelangelo's Sewer Surprise actually turned out to be quite a surprise tonight, if you catch my drift."

Her laughter followed her out the door. Donatello forced his attention back to the laptop, with its progress bar that was still painfully frozen. Exhaling sharply through his nostrils in frustration, his fingers darted across the keyboard and a search engine opened up across the screen. As he typed his query in the search field, it began to autofill. His eyes widened. Donatello swallowed as a list of terms began to populate based on April's previous searches. If the search terms were any indication, she and his brother had gone much further than he had thought. Than he had even thought possible.

Eyes unnaturally wide, Donatello scrambled to shut the laptop. From the doorway, April cocked her head to the side. He slammed it closed, the screen smacking loudly over the keyboard. Her long auburn hair cascaded across her shoulders as she straightened herself. And those rosebud lips of hers blossomed into a smile as she raised her glass.

"You like Irish Coffee, Don?"

"Why do I get the feeling that's a pejorative term?" Donatello swallowed so loudly he thought Michelangelo might be able to hear him from the kitchen.

"It's a drink," she shook her head, but she didn't stop smiling. "You're over twenty-one, right?"

The turtle nodded, but only because he didn't know what else to do. One of the bottles clattered amidst the chaos of his desk. She was unscrewing the other, biting her lip as she twisted the cap. Her hand slid down the neck of the bottle and his breath caught in his throat. It was only then that he realized that his scan stopped when he shut the laptop.

The turtle silently berated himself for allowing his emotions to interfere with his work, but April didn't seem to notice. Her eyes were on the the whiskey filling his mug. When she finished with the whiskey, she wasted no time in wrenching the bottle of baileys open, its contents sloshing in the bottle, threatening to spill all over the laptop he had been so painstakingly tending to all evening. She tipped the bottle into his coffee mug and the liqueur flowed freely, making what little coffee was left rise dangerously close to the edge.

April shook her head, and wet tendrils of her hair fell about her face, then clung to her neck. "What a fucking day."

When she offered no other details, Donatello stared at the mug, which brimmed with a solution that was undoubtedly more liquor than coffee. The neck of the whiskey bottle clinked against the edge of her glass. The turtle clutched his mug, holding carefully in his six fingers. His glasses had slipped down his nose again, and he glanced at her over the edge of the thick tortoiseshell frames. Next to him, April had settled into one of his salvaged computer chairs, the one with the broken wheel (but no pizza stains). She sighed, staring blankly at her drink. He couldn't help but wonder if she would rather be sharing her libations with Raphael instead.

The turtle sniffed his drink. He took a tentative sip and coughed. Scrambling to push his glasses back up, he gazed at April, mouth agape. "You drink this straight?" he pointed incredulously to his mug.

"Only on special occasions," she chuckled, and the amber spirit sloshed against the sides of her glass as her shoulders shook with her subdued laughter.

Timorously, Donatello took another drink, and much to his surprise, the second sip was easier to swallow. Something flickered in him, flaring up, like a fire in his gut. Not a lurching, rolling flame that burned everything in its path, but a comforting heat that spread from his core to the rest of his extremities. A fire in the hearth of his heart. April took another drink, and he followed her example. He had always been a fast learner.

With a deep sigh, April set her glass aside and whipped her wet hair atop her head in a messy bun. Her shirt was wet, too. So wet that it clung to her, more revealing than it should have been, even in the low light of the lab. Donatello could see the outline of her bra, the curve of her waist, the dip of her navel; the sopping wet fabric accentuating the rise and fall of her chest with each breath. It must have been raining, up there, above ground.

Donatello leaned back in his chair, holding his mug to his chest. The little fire that wouldn't go out.

"Want to play a game, Donatello?" she grinned.

The turtle's eyes narrowed behind his bandana, and his glasses, and everything else piled atop his head. He was always wary of games. Growing up, games were just another opportunity for Leonardo to espouse some moral. To teach them a lesson. The team building of game play was fine enough, until Raphael inevitably lost his temper. As an adult, Donatello wasn't above the occasional video game bout with Michelangelo, but otherwise, he avoided games in favor of more practical applications of his time. Though it had been some time since he had been sideswiped with an N64 controller, Donatello was still wary of games.

"It's called I've Never."

Donatello's brow ridge creased dubiously.

"Someone says something they've never done, and if they other person has, you know - done the thing, they have to take a drink," she shrugged. "It's easy. I'll show you."

"That just seems like a thinly veiled excuse to drink more," he sniffed.

"That's because it is."

The turtle felt his lips turn up at the edges as he shook his head wryly.

"Alright alright, I'll start," she said, taking a brief sip of her whiskey. "I've never...hacked someone's computer." She leaned forward, clutching her glass.

The turtle blinked as she stared up at him.

"You drink now."

"Oh!" the turtle stammered. "Oh. Right." He took a conservative sip.

"Oh no. Oh no no no," April shook her head.

"What!?" he spit defensively, then rushed to cover his mouth.

"Take a bigger drink than that," she cocked her head to the side. "Come on."

With a deep breath, he knocked back his mug, and the searing liquid rushed down his throat. "I can't believe you drink this straight," he coughed, thumping his chest with his fist.

"That's better," she smirked. "Your turn."

"As you wish," Donatello exhaled, his breath hot. "I've never been on TV."

April licked her lips and took a long, deep swig. He watched her throat undulate as she drank the spirit down, trying to keep himself from inhaling too sharply. Like Raphael, she had to know. But that didn't mean he had any interest in discussing it.

"Alright, wise guy," she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I've never…" she paused to bite her lip. "I've never slept in the sewer."

"Oh, low blow," Donatello chuckled, taking another drink. His eyes fell across her face, and his own softened with a smile. "I've never...been published."

She smiled at him. "You will, someday."

"Y-yeah, sure," the turtle felt the heat rise in his face, and he was quick to divert his gaze to the floor. "Drink up."

A comforting warmth had settled over him, leaving his mind quiet. Still. He had never really drank, before. Raphael had come home with a bottle of half-empty Jack Daniels, once, dug out of some dumpster, he said; though none of them actually believed that. Leonardo had tried it, sparingly. Michelangelo had overindulged, and woken up hanging upside down from the ceiling in the hashi. But Donatello had refrained. He could not afford to tamper with his greatest asset. What good would he be, if he couldn't think? But those were assumptions he had held, before he knew about the warmth. And the quiet. It was wonderful, with her, in the newfound quiet.

"Well, I've never," she hesitated, groping for her next prompt, "I've never used a bo staff."

"Oh, come on Miss O'Neil," Donatello teased. "You can do better than that."

She shrugged. He drank. When he was done, he found himself struggling to focus his eyes. Donatello readjusted his glasses, to no avail. Everything was still slightly askew.

"Donnie."

"Huh?" he sputtered, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

"It's your turn."

"Oh, yes, well," he blinked. "Uh, I've...I've never been kissed."

He stared at her, waiting. Waiting for her to echo her earlier sentiment. You will, someday. But the words never came. She finished her drink in silence. She didn't even flinch. Despite his best efforts to restrain himself, the sullen, subtle line of a frown spread across his face.

A bead of water dripped from her wet hair, rolling down her face, breaking the tenuous bond between her eyelashes and her mascara, making her makeup run. A black streak shot across her blushing cheeks, hot and pink from four fingers of whiskey. Blinking, she ran her fingers along the edge of her eyelashes in an attempt to wipe away the smudge, but only made it worse. When she pulled her fingers away, black and wet with smeared mascara, she frowned.

"Our meteorologist said it wasn't going to rain today."

"Need a towel?" he asked, grateful for the excuse to take his eyes off her. If his gaze had lingered any longer, it might necessitate an explanation he was not ready to give.

April shook her head, slowly.

Donatello leaned back in his computer chair, scrambling as he tilted backward, his equilibrium reeling. He scavenged his desk for something that might help. Anything at all. There wasn't anything that hadn't sopped up the leavings of countless coffee rings. He bit his lip; he had nothing to offer her.

She sighed. "I'm such a mess."

"Oh, April, you're not a mess," he snapped back upright in his chair, what was left of his coffee sloshing to and fro as he abandoned the mug haphazardly at the edge of his desk. "You're beautiful."

Donatello reached to touch her, to brush away the smear of makeup. He just wanted her to feel beautiful. To see herself the way he saw her.

If it hadn't been for I've Never, he never would have told her what he thought. If it hadn't been for I've Never, he never would have touched her. If it hadn't been for I've Never, he would have felt the swell of self-consciousness, screaming at him about how clammy his hands were, compared to her skin. Her cheek was so warm. Soft, and perfect under his calloused fingers. Suddenly Donatello was deeply grateful for games.

A buzzing sound cracked the silence between them. It fell away, like thin ice under their weight. Leaving Donatello scrambling. The turtle blinked, then closed one eye in an attempt to focus as April lurched out of the computer chair; away from him. Yanking her messenger bag up, she dug furiously through its contents.

"I didn't even know I could get a signal down here…" she muttered.

Donatello silently cursed himself for installing all those signal boosters in the lair.

"Ah ha!" she cried, triumphantly wrenching her battered smartphone from the recesses of her bag, which slumped unceremoniously from her lap to the floor.

Though his vision blurred, he could see the caller's ID blinking on the screen as the buzzing droned on. Raphael. But it didn't say Raphael. It simply said "Red". Something roiled in Donatello. She had given him a nickname. The turtle took a deep breath, trying to swallow the sick feeling that was clawing up from the depths of his gut.

"What do you see in him, anyway?"

The words had just fallen out of his mouth. He hadn't even thought about them beforehand. They just happened. That frightened him more than any answer she might give him. His lips pressed together ruefully. The phone kept buzzing. Donatello froze in his chair, his entire body tensing. Her phone fell silent in her hand. As the vibrations died, his fight-or-flight response was still shrieking, making his muscles scream as he refused to move. Deep seated instinct echoed in every corner of his mind; run. Run. Run!

April looked up at him, with those big blue eyes, and dark lashes, smokey with smeared makeup. The phone buzzed again. He bit his lip. She took the call.

Though her mouth moved, Donatello did not hear what she said. Too busy silently admonishing himself. Idiot. The insult hammered relentlessly at the back of his mind. When he looked up, she was already walking away.

Donatello slumped back in his chair with a sigh. Within seconds, he reached the mug she had filled with liquor. At least he would always have coffee. Bringing the mug to his lips, he took a timorous sip, before knocking his head back, imbibing all that was left. Even though his coffee had long since gone cold, that Irish Coffee was still hot. The whiskey slid down his throat like fire.

The click of her boot heels alerted him of her return, and he blinked, trying to get a read on her. With a sigh, she slid her phone into her back pocket.

"I've gotta go," she muttered hurriedly, tossing the liquor bottles into her bag.

"A-are you sure you're ok to drive?" he squeezed his eyes shut. "I mean, bike?"

"I'm fine, Don," April shrugged on her signature yellow leather jacket. Then, more gently, she said, "But thank you for asking."

As she slung her messenger back over her shoulder, she gave him a fleeting glance. And then, almost shyly, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her still wet jeans. "Thanks for everything, tonight. It was just what I needed." Her eyes wandered to his desk, where the light of her laptop still blinked. A gnawing reminder of unfinished business between them.

"I'm sorry for interrupting you."

"April," Donatello said, standing slowly, steadying himself on his desk. When he realized how he towered over her, he shrunk back, rubbing the back of his head uneasily. "You can interrupt me any time."

Before he could even blink, she squeezed his hand and leaned up, surprising him with a fleeting kiss on the cheek. Her nose hit the mouthpiece of his headset, leaving it thrumming in his ear, against his face, even after she pulled away.

"Now you can't use that bullshit never been kissed line on me next time," she smiled. "See you later, Donnie."

Donatello wanted to speak, to say goodbye, to tell her to travel safe; but his breath was trapped in his throat, held hostage by the wild beating of his heart.


	3. Just Enough

Donatello stood in the alleyway between apartment buildings, slinking into the shadows that only grew longer and deeper as the lights of New York City grew brighter in the fading day. A bitter autumn wind stirred the leaves it had blown in from off the street, making the garbage that didn't quite make it all the way into the dumpsters rustle as it blew back and forth across the ground. Donatello almost smiled; he liked autumn best. Shorter days, longer nights. Not like the summer, with those long days and late nights that forced them to wait, biding their time below ground. Longer nights meant more latitude to come top side. More time to spend with her.

He had rehearsed his delivery of April's laptop countless times. Every time he imagined returning it to her, his hands became clammy. His throat became dry. The turtle's eyes drifted to the fire escape, up the face of the building where the windows were flickering alight as the darkness settled over the city.

He wondered what would have happened if he was the one left behind after that Foot raid, not Raphael. If he had been there with her instead of his brother, would she have taken up his bo staff instead of the sai? Would it have be him walking her home at night, now?

The turtle's face settled into a frown as scenarios populated his mind. _If it had been me instead of Raphael,_ w_e'd all be dead_, _most likely_. He thought. _If it hadn't been for my tracking signal they might never have found us_. Donatello sighed miserably. _April's intelligent enough. She would have known where to go. But the odds of them finding us before Sacks completed his experiment...marginal at best. _

He didn't believe in fate. Or destiny. But there were still observable consistencies. Mathematical regularities in nature. But the theory of everything was posited to explain the universe; not to explain why April and Raphael were doing...whatever it was they were doing, and Donatello was alone in an alleyway, attempting to gird himself against the inevitable. The smiles. The sweet words. The excuses they would both make. He let out a deflated breath. Nothing was ever simple.

Donatello closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, running through the most likely scenario of the evening's events in his mind one last time.

The lonely night wind trailed him as he scaled the fire escape, making the tails of his purple bandana whip back and forth around his face. He wasted no time in making his way up the building, long legs taking even longer strides, but when he reached her window, he paused. The curtains were drawn.

Donatello blinked, then cast a quick glance to the watch on his glove. He had arrived at the agreed upon time. The turtle leaned in and squinted, trying to peer through the curtains, and his breath clouded the window before him. As he withdrew, his lips pressed into a flat line. _You could just go. It could be that easy. _He thought. _You could just leave the laptop here on the fire escape. It would be fine. _His eyes flicked up to the sky. _As long as it doesn't rain_.

A tap came at the bottom of the window and Donatello reeled back with a high pitched yelp.

As he scrambled to regain his composure, he saw her luminous blue eyes peering out from behind the curtain. She was there, smiling. April O'Neil was smiling at him. Donatello took a deep breath and pushed his glasses back up his snout. The turtle opened his mouth to speak, but his breath had stopped; it was caught in his throat, which grew arid and parched as his hands grew hot and clammy. And she hadn't even invited him in yet.

"Hey Apr-" he tried to say, but the wind blew the tails of his bandana right into his mouth. The turtle only managed to stop sputtering in order to sigh. "Hey April."

Of all the variables he had considered, wind had not been one of them. All the times he had rehearsed this scenario, and he had not even bothered to factor in the elements of nature. April looked up at him from beneath those long, dark lashes as Donatello chided himself in silence. He would know better next time.

The window groaned open. Despite his ungainly power pack, the turtle slid in without any further incident.

Rustling through the contents of his pack, Donatello hurriedly explained to April the repairs he had made to her laptop. An upgraded processor. Added RAM. A replacement fan. The best anti-virus he could pirate. Now the laptop would last her a little longer, at least.

April returned the favor with a smile. Her gratitude was written all over her face. It was in the way her lips parted in that thoughtful way her eyes shone. The way she leaned in close, listening, all of her attention on him. It made his knees quake.

"Earth to Donatello!" April chuckled.

Donatello blinked. "Oh. Um. What?"

"I was thinking of ordering a pizza. Sound good?"

"I, uh, really should be going." His hands were becoming clammy again. "Thank you, though."

"Isn't it, like, against your ninja code to say no to pizza?" She cocked her head to the side. If Donatello didn't know better, he would have sworn she was pouting.

A smile tugged at the edges of his lips. "Thank you, April. But I promised Master Splinter," he began, ready to prattle off one of many pre-prepared excuses he had armed himself with, but April simply shrugged.

"Say no more," she leaned over the couch and hoisted the window open again.

Donatello frowned. He had hoped she might protest his refusal, just a little. The turtle took a deep breath. "Ok, well, uh, let me know if it gives you any trouble."

April blinked.

"Your laptop."

"Oh, right," she replied, perching herself on the arm of the couch. "Thanks, Don."

The turtle stepped up on the couch, then crouched to squeeze himself out through the window. If Raphael could fit, so could he. It had been easy enough to get in, after all. As he began to pull himself over the back of the couch and out onto the fire escape, something jerked him back.

His pack, jutting every which way, had caught on something. Donatello's face crumpled in dismay. _It's ok, it's ok - _he reassured himself. _You're fine, you can do this_, he thought as he backed up slightly and tried again. _Maybe she didn't notice_. As he repositioned himself and his pack, a sharp pain shot up his neck. Something must have happened to his face, because in an instant, her hand was on his shell.

"Are you ok?"

"Fine, fine - I'm fine," Donatello attempted to look over his shoulder at her and winced.

"Yeah, right." April said flatly. "Sit down."

Donatello obediently backed out of the window, slowly and deliberately. The turtle and his pack sunk into the couch. He turned slowly to look at April, to reassure her that he was indeed fine, but just as he opened his mouth to speak the pain flared again, white and hot like a bolt of lightning. The turtle in purple grimaced, his hand instinctively shooting up to his neck to rub the source of the pain.

April's eyes drifted from his face to his back, and then his pack. "No wonder you're having neck problems with all that junk on your back."

"It's not _junk_," Donatello sniffed, wondering if he would ever catch a break for his equipment. His brothers were none too fond of it either; they said it slowed Donatello down. If one of them was slow, it put them all at risk. But he didn't see them complaining when he used it to disable the Sacks Tower security system.

"Take it off."

Donatello stiffened. "What?"

"Take it off," April ordered again. "Your ju-" The turtle's eyes narrowed, and April began to chuckle. "Your pack. Just take it off, ok?

The turtle stood, slowly, and reached for the straps to his pack. The movement made him wince. He shrugged the pack off without further incident. She tapped on his goggles, and he removed them. She gave him another knowing look, and he peeled his headphones away.

Something churned in his guts as his headphones clattered on the coffee table. Anxiety. He could feel it bubbling up inside him. He was exposed. Donatello felt the heat rise in his face. Naked. But he was also...lighter. The pressure on his shoulder was gone. The turtle rubbed his neck gently. Though the pain had abated, he could still feel it needling under his skin.

"Wanna back rub?" April chirped. "Raph says I've got magic fingers."

_Oh, right. Raph. Just Raph. _Donatello chuckled nervously. _Just your brother, Raphael, who could totally rip your arms out of their sockets and pick his teeth with them. No big deal. _The graphic mental image of blood squirting out of holes where his arms used to be like he had been dismembered in a samurai movie was interrupted by the touch of her hand.

April slowly circled around Donatello. Her lips were turned up in that half-smile that said she simply would not be refused. Anxiety swelled inside him, making him stiffen. He hadn't anticipated this. None of this was going according to plan. There were no variations of this scenario that involved touching. Backrubs were not among the variables he had considered as he rehearsed this evening over and over in his head. But if she could help him with the pain...

She instructed him to sit, so Donatello sat on the floor, back to the couch, pulling his shoulders back as his torso straightened to his full height. Even sitting down, he was almost taller than she was, sitting on the couch behind him.

"Oh come on, Don. It's just me," April teased. "Relax."

"I-I'm not relaxed?" the turtle stammered.

"Oh please, you're stiff as a corpse. _Relax._ Take a deep breath," she instructed. Donatello glanced up over his shoulder to see her taking an exemplary deep breath herself. As she brought her hands before her, her chest swelled as she inhaled. Something roiled within him, and he cast his eyes to the floor. He could only hope that his wide eyes, made even wider by his prescriptive lenses, had not given him away. The turtle sniffed, and his nostrils flared across his face.

"You call that a deep breath?" April leaned in, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and brushing against his, filling the air between them with her scent. She smelled so sweet, and clean. Like shampoo. And something else. A warm, natural smell that made his stomach turn and his tail twitch beneath his loincloth.

"Try again."

The turtle acquiesced and inhaled deeply, trying to ignore the way she smelled. Trying to forget just how close she was. Resistance was futile. In her apartment, her scent was everywhere. It was between them. It was in the blankets draped across the arm of the couch. It was radiating from the yellow leather jacket hanging by the door.

As Donatello took a deep breath, he tried to quiet his mind. His chest and plastron swelled in unison, and his eyes closed behind his glasses, as if he was beginning to meditate. In truth, meditation was never something he had excelled at. Though he never would have admitted it to Michelangelo. Or Raphael. Leonardo might have known, if he was not too preoccupied with his own practice to notice. Much to Donatello's relief, their other brothers' impatience tended to eclipse his own shortcomings. While Leonardo chided their brothers, Donatello had managed to master the art of appearing to meditate, but not meditation itself.

Donatello knew how how to begin the breathing exercises. But even if he was in lotus pose, back straight, eyes closed (and chakras allegedly aligned), his mind was rarely still. There was so much to know. So much to consider. So much to learn. Meditation had always seemed like a waste of time.

Before Leonardo had taken the lead on their group training sessions, Master Splinter was known for beginning every meditation session with the same words. "_A ninja must have a strong mind, as well as a strong body."_ But Donatello's mind was already strong. He was writing his first lines of code when Raphael was still struggling to learn to read, for Darwin's sake.

He had failed to see how quieting his mind made it stronger. Meditation only seemed to make him slower. Whatever his thoughts were on the matter of meditation, Master Splinter continued to emphasize its importance, so Donatello continued to make an effort. But he made no promises about where his mind went when he closed his eyes.

"Much better."

April's soft lilting voice drew him out of his thoughts, back to reality. The turtle blinked, and he was sitting on the floor of April's apartment, not the dojo. This was relaxation, not meditation. Though he had no idea how he could be relaxed with how close she was. Maybe he could fake it. Her fingers were running up his shoulders now. Donatello swallowed. Maybe this wasn't so unlike meditation after all.

Perfectly manicured fingers traced the edges of his shoulders, following the line of his clavicles to the base of his neck. When he felt his shoulders tighten, he took another deep breath. His posture slumped, slightly, but April didn't seem to mind. She was kneading the base of his neck. The tips of her fingers oscillated between pushing down, hard, and drawing across his skin, softly. Donatello let out a contented sigh, and April chuckled over his shoulder.

"Told you I had magic fingers."

April leaned forward, using her weight to apply pressure to his shoulders. Her hands swept up over his neck, lightly caressing his freckled skin. Her touch, as soft and fleeting as freshly fallen leaves on the wind, became forceful once again as she re-applied pressure to the base of his neck with the tips of her fingers. Donatello's head lolled back as the knots that laced his shoulders began to subside.

Her hands, gentle and warm, opened and contoured to his body before slipping down the crest of his neck. Her fingers, deft and quick, began to knead his deltoids. He thought, for a moment that her hands might slide down his arms to the bridge of his shell, to draw him closer to her. Without warning, her fingers jabbed at his shoulder, and his face pinched in discomfort.

"That's a nasty knot, Don." She leaned over his shoulder, and he caught her grin out of the corner of his eye. "Think I can take it?"

Donatello gulped.

April cracked her knuckles."Challenge accepted."

"Oh, April, it's fine - really," the turtle sputtered.

"Normally I would use my forearms, but your shell makes things," she paused, and Donatello hung on her words. "Complicated."

Before he could utter another protest she was leaning in, putting her weight on his shoulders again. The weight was nothing compared to the gear he lugged around on a daily basis, but it was sharper, distributed unevenly, targeting the persistent tangle of muscles lurking below the surface of his skin. Donatello gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain to break, like a wave on the rocks. Waiting for the release... for her fingers to be warm, and soft, and caressing him again.

"Almost got it," she murmured before her green nails abruptly scraped across the rim of his shell. Donatello cried out, not in relief, but in pain. His body instinctively lurched forward, away from her and her touch.

"Oh!" April yelped in surprise. "Oh, Don. I'm sorry"

Donatello glanced up at her. As he collected himself, he pushed his glasses up his snout. The turtle held her gaze just long enough to see her blush. April's cheeks were flaring a bright pink; pink as her glistening rosebud lips.

"I didn't know your shells were so...sensitive," she added hurriedly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

The turtle blinked before glancing away. She was flustered. Why was she so flustered? After everything she and Raphael had done while they were doing...whatever it was they were doing, she didn't know? He shut his eyes and then popped them open, his mouth drawing out into a taut, awkward line. Maybe they hadn't gone as far as he'd thought.

"I just thought, since you get, beat up on, you know, that -" she stumbled over her words. "That you didn't feel anything. In your shell."

Something sunk in the pit of Donatello's stomach. Was he so inhuman to her that she assumed he felt nothing? Shifting his weight, he turned to face her with a solemn expression.

"You can have your body beaten, but it still feels, doesn't it?" he asked, sounding more doleful than he had intended.

As her face settled into a sad expression, her gaze fell on Donatello. He tried not to swallow too loudly. Her full, beautiful lips were creased in the slightest frown. The turtle's eyes widened behind his glasses. _Of course_. She was used to Raphael, the impenetrable tank. If she hurt him, he never would have said anything. Would he? In his experience, even a wayward glance at Raphael could be just cause for swift retribution. But Raphael was gentle with April. He had to be.

"May I?" she pointed at his shell, almost shyly. "I might be able help relieve some tension."

She was making excuses. Donatello blinked, taken aback. She was curious about them. About _him_. He had never thought anyone would ever want to touch him. Much less anyone as beautiful and brilliant as April. Like he had told Michelangelo; "_It was so improbable it was practically impossible."_

The turtle in purple bit his lip, considering his options. He could let her touch him now, and accept that Raphael would kill him later, or he could refuse her, and odds were still quite high that Raphael would still kill him later.

Raphael be damned. She wanted to touch him. And he wanted her to. Donatello craved her, like he craved coffee, and conclusions, and solitude. Between all the text messages, and e-mails, and the late night arguments about who was the superior Starfleet captain, he had become addicted to her, and he hadn't even noticed.

"Uh, sure…" Donatello trailed off in an effort to sound nonchalant. As he repositioned himself with his back to her once more, he thought he could feel her smile. Closing his eyes, he shook his head. _Don't make inferences you can't back up with evidence, Donatello. It never ends well._ The turtle took a deep breath, and tried to clear his mind of all the graphic details of the myriad of ways Raphael could murder him if he ever learned of this encounter.

Just as Donatello was imagining Raphael snapping each of his appendages off his body like twigs from a sapling, she touched him, and all the thoughts crowding his mind faded into the background, until they were so quiet he could barely hear them at all. She pressed a single finger to the back of his shell. Gentle, yet firm, the tip of her finger fell right at the apex of his carapace.

"What's this?" She questioned, quietly.

"The one that looks like a keystone in an arch?" Donatello asked, trying to remember to breathe. "That's, uh, th-the nuchal bone."

And then it occurred to him. Breathtaking wasn't just some exaggeration, or a puffed up expression coined by some fool so high on their own hormones that they couldn't see straight. She was breathtaking. Literally breathtaking.

"And what about these?" He felt her fingers sliding down the edge of his shell, gentle and slow.

The turtle swallowed. "Those are my marginal scutes."

"Scutes?" She chuckled.

Donatello couldn't help but chuckle, too. "Yeah, it's, um, a bony plate under the shell."

As her hand moved inward towards the center of his shell, he felt his tail twitch under his loin cloth. "And these?"

"My pleural scutes." He stifled a stuttering breath.

And then her finger was dead center on his carapace, gently pressed over his spine. Donatello bit down on his lip, hard. Her finger hovered for a moment before she began to trace a line up his shell. He stiffened at her touch. Shoulders back, spine straight, he clenched his teeth to try and keep himself from shivering as she continued her exploration of his shell. His body ached for release, to succumb to the pleasure of her hands on him. He knew he could sate her curiosity about them...about him. About his body.

"Aren't you going to tell me what these are?" She asked, her voice soft and low. Heady, almost.

He realized how far he had let his mind wander, and instantly felt the heat flare in his cheeks. Her finger was still poised over his spine. "Vertebral." He gulped. "Vertebral scutes."

Her hands fell away, and Donatello became acutely aware of the absence of her touch. His senses were painfully heightened; all of a sudden everything felt so much more intense. The lingering heat on his shell from where her hands had been. The way she smelled. The sound of her breathing; calm, slow and rhythmic.

Donatello turned to face her. April O'Neil; as beautiful as ever. The way she was sitting on the couch with her arms crossed over her chest reminded him of that one comic book he had hidden under his bed for years. Spider-Man. It was Spider-Man; the one with the J. Scott Campbell cover of Mary Jane Watson in those ripped up jeans and that low cut top. He smiled. April was even prettier than Mary Jane.

"Better?" She asked, her full, pink lips curling into a grin. The answer was so obvious it might has well have been a rhetorical question. Maybe it was. Donatello didn't know anymore.

He opened his mouth to answer, but instead of offering any sort of respectable reply, he leaned up and kissed her. And this kiss wasn't like the friendly, fleeting kiss she had given him in the lair; this kiss was hard and firm. His lips closed around hers forcefully, then gently, pulling away slow. He opened his eyes, blinking behind his glasses, expecting wide eyes, and a furrowed brow. Donatello gulped. His infraction merited a protest. A slap on the face, even.

But instead, she yanked him towards her by the plastron and kissed him again. His eyes widened behind his glasses, but as her lips parted and her tongue slipped into his mouth, they were quick to close. He succambe to her; to her lips, and her tongue, to her mouth. Her wet, hot mouth was against his, inviting him into her.

Donatello pressed himself against her, and the heat of her body radiated from beneath the thin, soft fabric of her top. She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing his face to hers. Her hands, soft and delicate, grasped at his cheeks as her lips collided with his again and again.

As she showered him with furious, rapid fire kisses, it occurred to him. _Fuck_. He stiffened. _You have no idea what you're doing. _He had never thought any one would ever want to kiss him. He had never bothered to prepare. _Am I applying an adequate amount of pressure? _She kissed him again. _Am I giving her too much tongue? _Her mouth opened to his again, her tongue aggressively, deliberately attempting to draw his out. _Oh. More tongue. That's good, right? _Her hands were still on his face. Her thumbs gently brushed across his cheeks, lingering at the frayed edges of the bandana beneath his glasses. _Fuck. You have no idea what you're doing. _

Seizing the brief moment of pause, Donatello broke the kiss. Pulling away, slowly, he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his snout, but that did little to improve his vision. Their body heat had fogged the lenses of his glasses. April was so close he could feel her panting breath on his face, but she was little more than a hazy outline. _Maybe she won't notice. _He cleared his throat.

"April," he swallowed. "Uh. Am - am I doing this right?"

He lifted his glasses to see her brilliant blue eyes locked on him; her glistening pink lips turned upward in a smirk. "Shut up Donatello," she ordered with the forceful confidence of someone considerably more experiences than himself. Donatello was glad at least one of them knew what they were doing.

Before his glasses had the chance to hit the floor, he was straddling her on top of the couch. She stared up at him from beneath a veil of long dark lashes; her eyes, brilliant and piercing, cut through him like a blade, making him shake and buckle above her. Her lips parted, and Donatello drew in a shuddering breath. The turtle silently thanked Darwin he was nearsighted, not farsighted - that he could see her, below him, as her chest rose and fell with each hot, hastened breath.

"Don," she bit her lip. "Maybe I should be on top."

"Oh." Donatello blinked. April's fit, lithe body suddenly seemed so small and fragile beneath his. "Right. Of course."

In one swift motion he gathered her up in his arms and rolled onto his back. She shifted her weight, sliding her pelvis over his. His breath hitched, catching in his throat as her legs pressed against his sides. She leaned forward, and her thighs squeezed his. _Oh fuck. _Donatello forced his eyes shut. _What am I doing?_

"Don."

He opened his eyes.

"I have a feeling you're overthinking this," she said, gently.

April took his hands in hers, and placed them on her hips. She let him go, leaning back, teasing him with a gentle rock of her hips over his. The motion was just enough to make his tail tremble beneath his loin cloth. Donatello's heart hammered in his chest.

His thumbs shyly brushed over the jut of her hip, and his remaining fingers rested on her waist. He could feel his tail throbbing now; the slow, rhythmic pulse of blood rushing to his organ as it began to fill. He slowly moved his wide, green hands up the curves of her torso.

Her skin was so soft and warm; sweet smelling. Donatello inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself, but instead, his nostrils filled with her scent, making his heightened senses flare; making his swollen tail strain against his boxer briefs, his cock aching to emerge.

"I want you," he exhaled.

April bit her lip. "How much?"

"More than anything." Donatello tightened his grip on her waist.

And as he pulled her down, drawing her into another embrace, a bitter cold coursed through the room.

When Donatello opened his eyes; he was still in the alleyway next to her building. He hadn't delivered her laptop. He hadn't even made it to the fire escape. He was just standing there; cheeks flushed, heart pounding beneath his plastron.

"Oh." The sound of his sudden, forlorn self-awareness slipped through his lips, and was carried away by the night.

The lonely autumn breeze danced at his feet, sending a chill through him almost as cold and bitter as his disappointment. He sighed.

At least this time he would know to account for all the variables; even the wind.

A/N: _I started this final chapter, I don't know, four months ago? It was such a challenge to figure out how to maneuver through the situation with Donatello and April in a way that felt genuine and true to them as characters in the 2014 universe. I struggled with the decision to make this Donatello's fantasy, but in the end, it's just what rang true. I never intended for it to become a multi chapter story; the whole thing sprung forth from a little one shot that people seemed to genuinely enjoy, and I enjoyed writing Donatello, so I went with the flow and this is what happened. Thanks so much reading; I hope you enjoyed. _


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